The After School Crowd

What do you do with them? Mine are 5-7 years old. They have completely lost interest in doing a craft after school... I've stopped preparing crafts b/c I get it all set up and ready and they say, No thanks we dont want to do a craft!

No interest in playdough anymore, or cut and paste, drawing, colouring or anything.... they have taken to following me around (2 are my own) sulking, pouting, big giant dramatic sighs and saying they are bored. (this may be my own fault as over the xmas holidays when I was a million weeks pregnant, I allowed them to bring their DSi's to play and now, that's all they want to do and I refuse to let them when there is a basement full of toys that were perfectly fine before they got to play their DSi's here)

So, anyone have new suggestions?

Mine play mini sticks .... Or transformers / Lego ..... Sometimes they race around playing dodgeball.... I have a dedicated daycare space and all the little ones are gone by then so they can do that

I was just talking to one of the ECEs at Early Years this week who says that tracing pictures is BIG with after school kids and has been keeping them busy for weeks.

I am not sure that everyone would like that but she seemed pretty enthusiastic

The other thing that worked when I did after school was games of MEMORY. They loved that! And also play dough and pipe cleaners. I didn't tell them what to make with the playdough or pipe cleaners but they would look at the sample pics and just try to make something

Oh and of course you can never go wrong with just letting the older kids play outside and burn off steam...some balls, tag...etc

Tracing would be fun!
Quite honestly, when my small group gets off the bus they aren't up for any structured activities as their whole day has been structured! They come in and wash their hands, have a snack and enjoy about an hour of free imaginative play before they get picked up.

I do not offer school age care - however remember back on that age group and agree with Lisa after being in a structured program all day 'laying back' with some free play would be right up the alley!

That is a fair point about a "lack" of structure. I have been debating changing the format of my daycare, so that I can do some schooling. I was thinking about only offerering B/A school. Here I am planning a huge regime of things to do... I suppose a little down time isn't bad either, considering they just spent 6-7 hours sitting at a desk! Save the planned activities for full days/PD days.
Thanks for pointing that out! :)

Yes, I had been doing a craft on some days with freeplay after, or just free play... as I said they could care less about the craft anymore, so I have been letting them free play afterschool, (also cuz I have a newborn too!) but now the problem is they dont want to free play, they are constantly bord!!
But I like the idea of tracing! Thanks Ladies! :)

I know these are not your OWN kids but seriously when I was growing up any child who claimed to be BORED in ear shot of an adult was given a nasty household chore to do that my stepmother did not like to do - there was RARELY anyone bored in our home cause we would rather rack our brains for something FUN to do in the house than find ourselves washing walls or windows or scrubbing behind toilets ;)

Seriously if a child ever claimed to be BORED in my program I would so be implementing something like that only 'daycare environment related' .... my highchairs could use a good scrubbing so could the creative art table and chairs underneath were it is perfect for a 4 foot child to get at .... hey you can send your bored school age kids my way I could get quite a list of productive things they could do if they are too 'bored' to exercise their imagination I could get the exercising their muscles instead ;)

Weeeelll, 2 are my own, and 1 daycare kid! I threaten to throw away all the toys in the basement when they say they are bord. One day I'm gonna put all the toys away in bins and stack em in the garage and let them come home to an empty basement to see how that sits with them!